ISA RC02 Economy & Society

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Catalysis, Acceleration, and Adaption

In general, the pandemic displayed the fragility of both market and state organisational structures, since neither the former, nor the latter succeeded in effectively protecting the population from physical, social, existential and economic suffering. And both knew that a pandemic was on the way: people did not. 

I don't think there is anyone who can predict what will happen next year and perhaps not next October with reduced margins of error. However, from the tracks on the ground, namely the effects of the COVID-19, considering how it has been and is managed, not what it is as a virus from a biological point of view, seems to assume two key properties: catalysis and acceleration.

COVID-19 as a catalyst of human attention

In this function, it catalyzes the social attention to life protection with continuity. This is not a foregone conclusion: the climate emergency does not enjoy such status. Attention is a scarce resource in the contemporary network society. 

COVID-19 as an accelerator of technological innovation

Technological innovation is accelerated by the pressure exercised by the virus’s spread as a menace to humankind. All this is part of a bigger picture, that of a society grounded on emergencies of any kind: financial (since 2007-8 and still kicking), climatic and health-related. 

Public investments in healthcare are expected through indebtment, which will burden the next generation’s shoulders. With a recession knocking at the door, certain types of companies and jobs could disappear forever. Investments boosting the economy could accelerate the technological innovation and related unemployment caused by labour-replacing automation.

A strong alliance between governments and giant platform companies on Big Data management for surveillance and healthcare is already in action and the emergency legitimates less transparent contract negotiations.

Moreover, technologies need our digital and cognitive skills: they are embedded in our life skills as the ground on which they could flourish or perish. This crisis is a transformation into something else that we do not know but we can influence, depending on our mindsets.

Adaptation and the commoning

A strategy of adaptation is more realistic than a sustainability-based policy, but its recognition could fail for the shared illusion “to go back to normal”. Said this, the context is open to intellectual innovation also in social sciences, and the detached observer must give way to the social co-designer, a skill that is not for most academic sociologists. At the same time, the monodisciplinary gaze will lose ground.

In this context, the capacity of communities to self-organise and to canalize their energies and attention to protect life is crucial. An outstanding example for that is the production of facemasks and other PPEs via 3D printing to respond to the unmet demand. These “Open Communities” can provide these equipments and tests with sufficient tempestivity to stem the spread of the virus if they rely on distributed ledger technologies. For an early stage example see the protocol Social Shield Shaper.

If this opportunity is missed, it could, on the contrary, pave the way for an alliance between platform companies and the state to restore security and administer at high costs a tranquiliser pill for the bewildered.

Dr. Vincenzo Giorgino is a Professor Dept. of Economic and Social Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics University of Torino, Italy